Former Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita has settled his libel lawsuit against The Daily Beast, in which he accused the digital outlet of defamation for its reporting on his compensation from the 2024 race.
The parties reached an agreement to settle the suit on Friday, according to the Daily Beast, which told the New York Times that LaCivita did not receive any payment or apology. However, the outlet added an editor’s note to the article stating it had “corrected and clarified its reporting concerning compensation associated with Mr. LaCivita’s work on President Trump’s campaign and removed a related podcast episode that could not be edited.”
The lawsuit filed in March in U.S. District Court in Virginia centered on a story published in late 2024 titled: “Trump In Cash Crisis-As Campaign Chief’s $22m Pay Revealed.” LaCivita claimed the Beast created the false impression “that Mr. LaCivita was personally profiting excessively from his work on the campaign and that he was prioritizing personal gain over the campaign’s success,” according to court documents obtained by TheWrap.
The Beast called his original lawsuit a “meritless and a transparent attempt to intimidate The Beast and silence the independent press.”
The article was written by freelancer Michael Isikoff, who was not a named defendant. It stated that LaCivita, a manager for Mr. Trump’s reelection effort, was paid millions over two years from the campaign, which was repeated in several follow-up Daily Beast articles and a podcast.
LaCivita’s lawyers argued that public Federal Election Commission records proved otherwise, and demanded a retraction in November. The Beast the corrected its article to change the amount from $22 million to $19 million and clarified that his consulting firm was paid, not him personally.
Daily Beast executive editor Hugh Dougherty said in a staff email Saturday that Isikoff’s reporting “has now been vindicated.”
“We win, and keep, our readers’ trust by doing what we did here: reporting rigorously, transparently updating stories in the light of new reporting, and standing by our journalism when the people we have made uncomfortable threaten us, and try to bully and intimidate us,” Dougherty wrote in the note, which the Times reviewed.
LaCivita’s lawyer Mark Geragos told the paper that the editor’s notes added to the articles amounted to “a white flag of surrender … a complete and total capitulation by The Daily Beast.”
The post Daily Beast Settles Defamation Lawsuit With Former Trump Campaign Manager Chris LaCivita appeared first on TheWrap.
